1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a media information search apparatus and search method, and particularly relates to a recoding media search apparatus and recording media search method for taking in and displaying or storing the contents of signals when playing back or storing the signals recorded in a recording medium.
2. Description of Related Art
Optical disc players etc. employing disc-shaped recording media, such as CDs (Compact Discs) and MDs (MiniDiscs) for digitally recording audio signals of music, etc. have become widespread. There also has been a tendency to provide CD players and MD players with dubbing functions where the contents of CDs and MDs are stored on a large-capacity HD (Hard Disc) or DVD (Digital Versatile Disc). Personal computers also have appeared where this kind of archive function is made possible using a combination of hardware and software.
For a CD or MD, for example, as one song is taken to be one program (referred to as a “track”), one or a plurality of programs (tracks) then being recorded constitute one album overall. An operation of dubbing to another recording medium, such as a HD, from a CD or MD as a recording source is then possible either, for example, by dubbing the whole CD, i.e. dubbing in an album unit, or by only dubbing tracks designated by a user.
Contents information is not typically included on a CD. When dubbing, i.e., archiving is then carried out to a HD or DVD, etc. using compression technology such as MP3, etc. that is one data compression format, it is necessary to input manually song titles and album names for every song. This means that dubbing or archiving operations are somewhat troublesome.
In a CDDB (Compact Disc DataBase) constituting a CD contents information database, which is accessible over the Internet, there are also cases where TOC (Table of Contents) data are associated with song titles and album names. It is then possible for a CD player capable of being connected to the Internet to acquire song titles and album names automatically using this database and display this information at a display of the CD player. However, this database CDDB does not cover all CDs, and there may be cases where automatic acquisition is not possible where input will have to take place in the conventional manual manner.
Further, there may be cases in the related art where two or more items of album information exist for a single item of TOC data. This is because the bulk of this database CDDB is made by input by general users. There also may be cases where errors are not verified, resulting in erroneous data being mixed in because input is carried out by users.
Therefore, if a search is carried out at a CD player to acquire contents information via the database CDDB utilizing the Internet, then either all of the searches will result in complete searches not being possible or erroneous contents information may be acquired for display and storage, depending on the case.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei. 8-306170; a media information search apparatus is disclosed in which an optical information search apparatus reads out unique identifying information stored in advance in a plurality of optical discs housed in a disc housing section using a unique identifying information reader. Index information for identifying media is then searched from the database according to the read unique identifying information. Recorded contents information for a plurality of recording media is then searched in a straightforward manner as a result of a search controller retrieving recorded contents information corresponding to searched information for use in detected media identification from the database.
This apparatus can only search information from contents information recorded in a database prepared in advance, such as, for example, a database prepared on a CD-ROM. It is therefore not possible to search the information about new CDs from the database of the above CD-ROM if the CDs come out after this database is obtained.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-269904, a data management apparatus is disclosed in that each item of data dubbed from a first recording medium to a second recording medium is managed using database means, identification information for the first recording medium being managed using the database means. It is possible to obtain additional information from an external server via communication means. It is also possible to obtain additional information, such as song titles and other information, without user input being required by recording the obtained additional information in the database means automatically. Thus, additional information for data dubbed to the large-capacity second recording medium is automatically recorded, which increases both usefulness and operativity for the user.
This kind of data management apparatus has the drawback that it is not possible to carry out further searching in the case that corresponding contents information does not exist in the case of searching the external database CDDB based on track information obtained using the TOC information.    [Patent Document 1]    Japanese Patent Application Publication No. Hei. 8-306170.    [Patent Document 2]    Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-269900.    [Patent Document 3]    Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-269904.    [Patent Document 4]    Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-67408.